Tag Archives: election

The GOP establishment is pissing its pants over Trump, and I’ll tell you why:

Donald Trump is here as a counterweight to Bernie Sanders (a radical in an age of partisan conformity and polarisation), and to divide and conquer the Republican party by exposing its weaknesses from within.

He is here to echo the dissatisfaction that conservative voters have wanted to voice for the last sixteen years—tactless, shameless, and with impunity—while revealing just how hollow the neocons’ campaigns really are. And he can get away with poking fun at the senators’ and governors’ track records simply because he doesn’t have a record of his own to criticise.

What he does have is his renowned success as a businessman and celebrity, and the establishment Republicans simply don’t know how to fight that kind of opponent. Truly, Donald Trump is a wildcard.

But don’t dare double-down on him, for Trump is the house, and the house is secretly dealing for Hillary Clinton—a woman who knows how to bluff, and has hitherto played this game close to her chest—and the house always wins

For years, both the republican and democratic parties have been polarising politics: forging solidarity by consolidating voter support, by systematically dividing voters on key, hot-button issues, thereby erasing the subtle hues from the perceivable spectrum.

Yet, in 2016, we are starting to see some of those colours flood back into perspective, and for good reason: a good director knows how to frame a shot using colour, contrast, and saturation to make the details he or she wants us to see stand out. And the billionaires back in Wall Street have invested a lot of money in the best directors and producers, in what is turning out to be the biggest blockbuster election of the millennium.

Before starting his campaign, corporate lobbyists knew that Bernie Sanders was a serious threat to the establishment, as he was always “one of those politicians not like the others”—most especially because, try as they might, no amount of green in the world could change the man’s colours. Here, everyone was either red or blue, and yet his ideas were so hot, he was near-ultraviolet, so the directors were tasked with coming up with a good counterpart to capture the audience’s attention, and that’s where Donald Trump came in.

Now we suddenly have near-infrared to balance out the ultraviolet, and the directors have skillfully framed both candidates to be unstable, and unviable; drawing an otherwise lackluster Hillary Clinton into perspective, as she is suddenly perceived to be the only sane choice among them.

The truth is, if you’ve been following her campaigns (that is, for the Senate and for President in 2008, and again 2016) you’d realise that she is neither red or blue, hot or cold, but lukewarm. Her temperature changes with the climate as she tailors her skin to match the local colour; and if you were to watch her when she’s not performing in the spotlight, you’d see that her act is really just a transparent façade intended to impress voters and throw off her adversaries. Where does she really stand? Where she has always stood: silhouetted behind the desk of the Oval Office.

Bipartisan politics is a polarizing trick to divide, control, and predict the masses. It’s an illusion of Democracy and it plays upon our need to fit in andidentify with a group. But we are more complex than that. This nation facescomplex tasks which require complex solutions.

My assessment is this: We’re trying to write out the solutions to this nation’s problems with just two keysof a grossly incomplete keyboard, and that shouldbe a clear sign that we need help. (Red-Blue-Red, S.O.S., dit-dah-dit, that’s all Ihear, and that’s all the worldhears too.)

Underneath all of the campaign posters, muffled beneath the prevailing voices,there are alternatives. Seek out those alternatives. It’s time this nation took offthose outdated 3D glasses and started seeing reality again for the vivid worldthat it is. For some, perhaps for the very first time.

“I will fight the lion!” fifty men shout in unison. After weeks of deliberation, and dozens more lives lost, a champion is chosen.

A great feast takes place as everyone drinks to the inevitable victory of our new hero. And as the celebrations near to a close, the town breaks out in song, for the valiant acts that are about to take place. Little do we know, that our brave volunteer hasn’t slept a wink last night, for fear of the unknown that awaits him. Reluctantly, he descends down the hill where the townsfolk saw the beast last. He doesn’t have to venture off too far, as the lion has left much carnage in its wake.

There it is, gnawing on the last bit of flesh clinging to the bones of a fellow citizen, entangled within the garb of one of our former heroes sent before it. Our champion gets to high ground, trying to work out a strategy before he is ready to strike. But the lion smells his fear, and stares him dead in the eyes. A cascade of petrification begins to roll down our hero’s legs, but he resists the curse, just in time to escape the lions bound. He steals himself to an even higher ground, while the lion chases him around, as he fights for his life.

Meanwhile, the town isn’t threatened by the lion during this distraction, but it won’t last for long. And the feeling is merely a complacent comfort. A few of us still know that our champion cannot distract it for too long before it begins to get bored with him. He must therefore kill the lion, before it devours him, the whole town, or both.

What does the town do? It cheers him on from five miles away. Is our champion still alive? Does he have enough supplies to overcome thirst and hunger? Does he have the tools to take down this magnificent beast? Why are we all hiding five miles away — safe for now — up on our little hill?

If we expect our warrior to win, should we not support him in every way we can? Our words are of no comfort, for they mean just as little as his. If we want him to succeed — and we do need him to succeed — we should take action, ourselves, and have the courage to come down and fight along with him, and help him to accomplish this mission, before it is too late.

“If we can’t take pleasure and satisfaction in concretely helping middle-class families and working-class families save money, get a college education, get health care — if that’s not what we’re about, then we shouldn’t be in the business of politics. Then we’re no better than the other side. Because all we’re thinking about is whether or not we’re in power.”

-President Barack Obama

Me: “Was this before of after his inauguration?”

Friend: “I have asked before: Unless you have the knowledge and inside information to explain how this worldwide crisis might have been better handled, take your criticism without substantiation to another page. Thank you. Between now and November, if you have a candidate promising us a better way, please, bring it to our attention. I will walk door-to-door and give my time in the commons to talk to all that will listen. I just want the best available people serving at all levels of our government.”

Me: “I understand that. And I whole heartedly agree. However, I am a firm believer in holding our elected leaders to their words.

“It doesn’t matter who you vote for, once they’re in power, as sincere as you may want them to be, don’t trust them within an inch of your life, but hold a close watch on them. Hold a gun to their proverbial head if you have to, whatever you gotta do, just make sure they don’t go back on their word, and strike you from behind.

“I voted for Obama, and I will again. But he has already burned me so badly. After he gets his second chance this next term, expect me and others to belligerently pressure him to do the right thing. Too quickly is this nation losing it’s sovereignity and philosophical identity.

“We are a nation that believes in certain inalienable rights. And yet a grave trade-off is taking place as minorities gain recognition and long-due liberties, while the whole of us sacrifice the basic fundamentals such as those of privacy, freedom of speech, habeas corpus and many others.

“I will not stand idly by as promises are left unfulfilled and forgotten; and neither should you.”